


from dust we arise

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Found Family, Harley Keener & Peter Parker Friendship, Jealousy, M/M, Miscommunication, Multi, Mutual Pining, Post-Apocalypse, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 08:46:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18937486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The world changed in a heartbeat.No one knew it was coming. The world was fine--and then it wasn't.It was beautiful and crowded andloud.And then it was dirty dusty quiet.





	1. Chapter 1

The world changed in a heartbeat. 

No one knew it was coming. The world was fine--and then it wasn't. 

It was beautiful and crowded and  _ loud.  _

And then it was dirty dusty quiet. 

And everything changed. 

~*~

He finds Peter in one of the schools. He goes there to replace their computers. That's what he says, and everyone nods. No one looks too closely at eccentricities these days--the Dust took someone from every survivor, and they don't press when he watches the kids with grief shining in his eyes. 

Peter is pale and shy and brilliant. He wears tatty jeans that have been obviously washed, if badly, and sits in a corner alone, tinkering in silence while Tony wires the new computers in. 

He's thin, with an underfed look and bags under his eyes and a kind of emptiness that's familiar, after everything. 

There's a moment--just one, but one is all it ever takes, he remembers her laughing saying he was too impulsive--when he looks up and catches Tony's eyes, wide and brown and shocking. 

For a heartbeat it's like staring at Morgan and his hands shake so badly he drops his screwdriver. 

Peter flushes and ducks back behind his project. 

~*~ 

He meets Harley later. 

Weeks later, after he has finished with the damnable computers and has moved on to the schools bio lab equipment--not that anyone is getting that thorough of an education these days, the teachers are Dust and the students are and no one really cares about a shitty piece of paper as the whole goddamn world falls apart. 

Peter is shy and anxious around him but he's earned a smile or two, and the boy always takes the food Tony offers, eating slow and neat, taking care to enjoy every bite. 

He coaxes bits of information from the boy and the staff-- 

His name is Peter. 

He was an orphan, even before the Dust. 

He lost his aunt. 

He is so smart it shocks Tony. 

He is skittish, to the point of fear. 

And someone takes care of him. 

Peter is a puzzle, intriguing and captivating, and missing pieces.

And then Tony meets Harley. 

~*~

Harley is everything Peter is not. Older and harder, louder and colder, sharp edged and aggressive where Peter is shy and reticent. 

He's also beautiful, a feral kind of pretty that makes Tony itch to touch. 

He's dirty--dirty boots and scuffed jeans, greasy cut hands and broad shoulders and dirty blonde hair above murky blue hair. 

He's dirty and his eyes are hard and he's too thin, his hand on Peter's shoulder possessive, protective, desperate. 

And the puzzle piece slots into place as Peter turns to him, eyes alight and a breathtaking smile on his lips. 

Harley is Peter's. Peter is Harley's.

And Tony wants them both. 


	2. Chapter 2

Harley watches Peter.

He has for years, since Peter and his pretty aunt moved in two doors down and he first saw the pretty boy with shy smiles and wide eyes.

He watched Peter in school and he watched him in their building, watched the boy who danced alone and free on the quiet roof, where no one could see him, and after--

After, he watched him still.

~*~

Harley finds Peter after the Dust, a desperate scramble to find the boy, to reassure himself that Peter was still alive, and then, when he had, when he had Peter in his sight and his grasp--he never let go.

He thought about it. There were moments when he had convinced himself that leaving the boy

would be best, that Peter would be better without Harley. But then—the world is a mess, a quiet, shadow of it’s former self, and he thinks—he can’t leave Peter.

He can’t leave Peter alone. Not when everyone else has. Peter watches him, his eyes hopeful and warm, and he doesn’t dance, not anymore, not since the Dust.

But he curls into Harley on their ratty couch and whispers, “Please don’t leave me.”

~*~

One thing didn’t change after the Dust–he still watched Peter. Only now it was with a desperation that scared him, made him count Peter’s quiet breath in bed next to him, made Harley grip tight on his shoulder and wrist, reassuring himself–this,  _ Peter _ , was still here _. _

_ ~*~ _

The world falls apart and comes back together, slow. Peter goes back to school and Harley goes to a local garage. Peter comes home with books and bits of information and homework that Harley helps him with, when he needs the help, and Harley comes home with his knuckles busted up and his hands covered in grease.

“You could go to school,” Peter says, stubborn. Harley is only two years older than him, hadn’t graduated yet—he  _ could. _

But there is this—Peter shivers, still, in the cold apartment. When he emerges from the shower, he’s too thin, his ribs standing out stark against pale skin.

And school might be more enjoyable than the garage, but it doesn’t keep the lights on or food in Peter’s belly.

Harley rubs his hair, affectionately and shakes his head. “I’ve got you to teach me everything I need to know, Pete.”

~*~

He likes watching Peter, when Peter is moving around their tiny apartment, making dinner while Harley sits on the counter and watches, a grin on his lips that he only ever wears for Peter.

“Why did you take care of me, after?” Peter asks, one night. He’s been quiet while he stirs their dinner—black beans and rice—and Harley’s been patient, waiting.

Peter talks, when he’s ready. That’s always been true, even before the Dust.

“Because we needed each other,” Harley says.

Peter bites his lip and looks at the food, almost doggedly.

“What if you didn’t need to take care of me? Would—would you be happier?”

~*~

Harley hates Tony.

He meets him on a Tuesday, with the taste of beans and rice still in his mouth and churning in his gut, and fear rippling through him, but chasing that fear is a fury he can’t quite contain.

He sees Peter first, leaning over a lab table, his eyes bright in a way that reminds him of before the Dust, and he’s—

He looks, and sees, and he hates himself. Because Peter is too thin, and his skin is pale, shadows under his eyes that are less prominent now than right after the Dust, but still too dark for a boy only fifteen years old. His clothes are stiff and not quite clean and he’s eager, so fucking eager, to learn, but there’s something ragged and unkempt about him that makes shame burn in his gut and tears sting at his eyes.

He doesn’t  _ want _ Peter to look like that, not ever, and he doesn’t know how to keep it from happening.

Peter is smiling, leaning into him, and Harley can’t help but grip his shoulder, pull him close, possessive and desperate, and he looks at the man he’s heard about, the man who brings Peter food and brings the school computers, who never pushes Peter to talk, but always listens when he does, the man Harley hates.

And his heart drops. Because everything Peter deserves, everything Harley  _ can’t  _ give him.

This man can.

“You must be Harley,” Tony Stark says, and his smile is knowing and sad and Harley  _ hates _ him.

~*~

He watches Peter and he wonders—how long before a billionaire with sad dark eyes stole him away?


	3. Chapter 3

Peter is smart.

He’s quiet, and he’s shy, and more often than not he’ll keep his mouth shut and his eyes open, but that’s a choice.

Uncle Ben told him that you learned more by watching than by talking, and it’s never failed him. And he  _ does _ talk, he knows Harley worries, but he does—he just prefers to keep that to their quiet apartment and sometimes, lately, when it’s just him and Mr. Stark in the lab.

But quiet doesn’t mean stupid, and he  _ knows _ .

Harley doesn’t like Mr. Stark.

He comes by the school on his lunch break, when Mr. Stark sits next to Peter and feeds him lunches too big for one person to eat, and Harley curls close enough it’s nothing to lean into his heavy familiar warmth. Harley watches Peter, watches Tony, his eyes big and angry and scared and Peter  _ knows. _

Because Peter is smart and Mr. Stark—Peter knows what he wants too.

~*~

His parents died when he was little boy, too young to remember anything but impressions, too young for stories to belong to him.

May and Ben used to tell him stories, but they always felt distant and fuzzy, a lens of his life viewed through someone else’s eyes, not quite  _ his.  _ He loves them for those stories, those impressions of a life that should have been his.

His parents died when he was a little boy and Uncle Ben died when he was twelve, killed in a shooting that left Peter in the hospital for months, and almost took May in the ensuing grief.

He lost May in the Dust, and when Harley found him—Peter latched on,  _ hard. _

He never quite let go, and the thing is—he doesn’t want to let go now.

~*~

Harley thinks it’s a choice. That Peter will chose him  _ or _ Tony.

Peter doesn’t want one or the other. He wants Harley, his best friend, his brother, his protector, the warm body in his bed and the comforting shoulder he leans on after nightmares, the first hand to reach out after the Dust, the first person he chose to love.

And he wants Mr. Stark, with his big sad eyes and his big rough hands, and his smile that’s shy and secretive and pleased with himself when Peter exclaims over one of the computers or something in his endless picnic basket. He wants to chase that sadness away and wants Harley to relax, wants his hands to be clean and not cut, and Tony’s shadows to fade.

He wants them both.

He wants a  _ family _ .

~*~

“Where do you live?” Peter asks, one afternoon while he picks at pasta salad with a tangy Italian dressing that makes his mouth pucker and his stomach grumble.

Harley would like it, and not for the first time, he wishes he could share.

“Uptown. In the Tower.”

Peter hums, and licks his lips, and Mr. Stark’s eyes chase the pink slip of his tongue.

“Where do you live?” Tony asks, husky and almost desperate.

Peter smiles. “With Harley.”

~*~

He lays in their bed, the one that is too small for both of them, but all they want because together they can keep the nightmares at bay or chase them away when they skirt too close.

“Harley,” he asks, whispers in the dark. “Do you trust me?”

“’Course I do, Pete,” Harley says, and his voice is sad.

Peter hates that, hates that Harley thinks he’s leaving.

Because Peter isn’t the only one whose smart. Harley is. And he can  _ feel _ the distance Peter is slipping between them.

He peers up at Harley in the dark and says, “I’m gonna take care of us.”

~*~

Peter is  _ smart, _ and he knows what Mr. Stark lost.

Everyone lost someone in the Dust—but not everyone was Tony Stark, the high profile billionaire inventor.

And not everyone lost their wife, child, two best friends and butler.

Tony had a family, all around him, a family to fill up the Tower with noise and life and happiness.

“Is it lonely?” he asks, and Tony looks at him, and Peter offers him a sad, apologetic smile. “I don’t want you to be lonely.”

“We all are lonely now,” Tony says, and Peter tips his head.

“We don’t have to be alone though.”

Tony smiles, a weak, hopeless thing. “Are you offering your company, kid?”

~*~

Peter is  _ smart _ and he hides it, hides his smile, hides the surge of victory and success.

~*~

Tony smiles, a weak hopeless thing. “Are you offering your company, kid?”

“Yes,” Peter says, simply, like it is.

And it is.

It is simple and easy.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony watches, careful and hopeful, anxiety rolling off him in waves, as Peter leads

Harley into the penthouse.

He doesn’t think it’ll work.

He has no reason to think it will, and from Harley’s mutinous expression, every reason to

think it won’t.

But Peter is there, smiling, darting ahead and tugging at Harley’s hand, and he is so

eager, so beautiful and  _ loud  _ in the penthouse, that Tony  _ hopes. _

~*~

The idea sat in his mind for days, before he acted.

And when he did--it was to the little garage where Harley worked that he went, instead of

to Peter with his big eyes and smile and mind.

“I can help you,” he said, bluntly. Harley didn’t want pretty lies and half truths and

evasions. Blunt and honest were the only things he would accept. “I can help  _ him.” _

“We’re fine,” he snapped, a desperation in his voie that Tony hated. He was so  _ young _

and so stubborn.

“But Peter deserves more than fine,” Tony said. It’s cruel, he though, but he’s desperate

and manipulative. “Peter deserves the best--and I can give it to him.”

“By taking him away from me,” Harley snarled.

Tony shook his head. “Peter would never allow that even if it  _ was _

what I wanted.”

Harley paused and his expression went curious and afraid. “What then?”

~*~

It's strange.

Not just the tension that fills the Tower.

But the noise.

It’s been quiet, so fucking quiet, since the Dust. Not just here, but the whole world, and now—

Now Peter is here, and he sings in the kitchen and his voice is high and clear as he chatters at Harley over his homework. Harley is slower, grudgingly responding, quiet and deep as he answers the boy, and Tony keeps his distance, giving them both space to get used to the Tower, to him, before he forced himself on them.

~*~

They are twisted together. So close that he isn’t sure how to separate them, not sure he should—he gives them both rooms, big beds and big spaces, and Peter wrinkles his nose adorably and Harley gives him a cold stare, and they promptly fall into each other’s space, ignoring Harley’s bed and room completely.

Sometimes, Tony will hear Harley in there, when Peter is at school—Harley still refuses to go back, although he is turning his attention away from the garage and to the expensive workshop Tony provided.

The boy is brilliant.

They both are—Peter tends to favor bio-chemistry and computers, and Harley likes having grease under his nails and engines partially assembled around him. Three days after they move into the tower, Tony realizes his toaster is missing, and Peter, sitting sleepily on the counter and munching on a piece of bread says, “Harls took it.”

Tony doesn’t protest. Giving up toast is a sacrifice he’ll willingly make, if it means Harley is more comfortable here.

He does make a point of hiding a spare coffee maker, just in case that’s the next thing to go.

Peter grins, when he sees it, and says, “He’d never come between me and coffee, Mr. Stark.”

Then he kissed Tony’s cheek and stumbled into the elevator, headed for another day of class.

~*~

“What do you want?” Harley asks, and Tony glances at him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answers, careful.

“Like hell you don’t. You brought us here for a reason—what do you  _ want?” _

He shakes his head, because the answer is too much, and will spook him.

“I just want you and Peter to be happy.”

Harley frowns at him, and Tony sighs. “You don’t have to trust me, Harley. But I would never hurt him. I wouldn’t hurt either of you.”

“I see the way you look at him,” Harley says, and his voice shakes. “I  _ know _ , ok?”

Tony doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t ask,  _ do you see how I look at you? _ Doesn’t respond at all.

“He—you—just—”

“He’s yours,” Tony interrupts, gently, and Harley’s eyes go wide and startled. “I wouldn’t come between you. I want you to be happy, Harley. Both of you.”

“He isn’t,” Harley says, whispers. “He—it’s not like that.”

Tony watches him, and sees what he isn’t saying.

_ I wish it was. _

He extends a wrench and Harley stares at it, confused and Tony smiles, gently. “Help me with the bots.”

It feels, almost, like a beginning. 


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes, he feels guilty.

The world is still reeling, broken from the Dust, but in the Tower, with Peter and Tony--he is happy.

He almost forgets, sometimes.

When Tony grins at him in the workshop, when he catches Peter humming, hips swaying as he cooks--he almost forgets.

He thinks it’s different for him. Tony lost so much in the Dust—his wife and daughter, his friends and family.

Peter only lost May, but May was all Peter  _ had. _

Harley didn’t lose anyone. He didn’t have anyone  _ to _ lose. If anything, he gained in the Dust, gained Peter and Tony and even if he sometimes wonders about Tony, about what he  _ wants _ —Harley isn’t stupid enough to think he is like them.

They are with him because they  _ need _ him. Because they lost everything else.

It’s not because they want him.

~*~

Peter likes to sit in the workshop when they’re working. He cooks, sometimes, and sometimes, Tony leaves and comes back with fragrent rich food that he never does explain how he came by—Harley thinks he’s paying the girls living in the first floor, but he doesn’t ask because Tony doesn’t like it when they notice him being nice—and then curls on the couch in the workshop, reading, or following Tony and handing him tools. Sometimes he leans over engines with Harley, pressing close and warm.

Once, he mentions wanting to run an experiment, and two days later a corner of the workshop is equipped for anything Peter could possibly want to create.

It’s strange, Harley thinks, looking up one night to see Peter nibbling on his lip as he bends over his notebook, a beaker bubbling at his elbow, as he looks at Tony mumbling to himself as he tweaks a schematic.

It’s strange, he thinks, but strange works for them.

~*~

He sees the way Tony watches Peter. The quiet hungry stare that doesn’t do anything to mask what Tony wants from him. He never does  _ ask _ though. He watches Peter, and he trembles with want—but he never steps too close, never demands anything.

And Harley doesn’t know what to do with that.

~*~

“Do you miss the apartment?” he asks one night. Peter is half asleep next to him, and he grumbles into his pillow. Energy is still licking along his skin, and sleep feels far away.

“Peter,” he prods, whispers, and Peter huffs, nestles deeper into his pillows.

“I miss sleep,” he says, bitchily and Harley’s lips twitch into a smile.

~*~

He leaves Peter sleeping in their bed and wanders back to the garage.

Tony is there. He’s got a cup of coffee near his elbow, forgotten, and Harley wonders who took care of the man before they moved in. Peter does a damn good job of it, now, but it’s not quite enough.

He can still see dark circles under Tony’s eyes, lines deep and drawn on his face.

“Can’t sleep?” Harley asks and Tony blinks at him.

“I’ve never really had a good relationship with sleep,” he says, lightly, and gives Harley a small smile when Harley puts his cup, refilled with fresh coffee, back down next to him.

“What about you?” he asks.

Harley shrugs. “Peter was asleep—and I couldn’t get my brain to shut down.”

“Surprised you left him there,” Tony murmurs.

Harley shrugs, like leaving Peter isn’t the hardest thing he does.

“He wouldn’t like you up here alone,” Harley says, softly and Tony looks at him.

And it makes him stop, his steps stuttering a little because he  _ knows _ that look, know the heavy hot want in it.

He knows because he watches Tony look at Peter like that.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

“I don’t have a pretty boy to coax me into bed,” Tony says, lightly.

His heart is pounding in his throat, and his fingers tingle with anxious nerves, and his voice cracks when he says, “Do you want one?”

Tony’s eyes go wide, and Harley takes the last step, slipping into his space, straddling his lap, and his fingers sink into thick dark hair. “Do you?” he whispers, hopeful, terrified.

“You don’t even like me,” Tony says.

“Shut  _ up,” _ he hisses and kisses him.

It’s hard and biting, too hot and messy and desperate to be good, but it’s  _ real _ and Tony’s opening for him, hands framing his face and tilting him, forcing the kiss to go gentle, making it light and Harley wants to  _ whine _ it’s so teasing and perfect.

“Tony,” he gasps, and Tony nips at his lip. Hard enough to make the boy buck against him, and both of them groan and Tony drags him back into a wet dirty kiss that leaves him panting and writhing.

Tony is staring at him when Harley blinks, lips wet and swollen and he has a flash of pride that  _ he _ did that—and then Tony whispers, “Did you mean it?”

Harley smiles at him, shy and uncertain and hopeful. 


	6. Chapter 6

Peter lays in his bed, some nights, and he aches.

This, he reminds himself, is what he wanted.

When he listened to Mr. Stark in the computer lab and held Harley’s dirty hands and shivered in the cold--he  _ wanted _ this. Wanted something better for them, for all of them.

But he listens to the silence of his bedroom, the empty space where Harley steals out

of his bed when he thinks Peter is sleeping, and he holds himself against the cold, and thinks--

He didn’t want to be alone.

~*~

The first anniversary of the Dust comes and goes in a wave of dark shrouds and memorials,

of useless speeches and shuddering silence. He smiles softly for Harley and sits quiet next to Tony when the older man goes quiet, leans against him when he trembles, and wipes away his tears when he finally cries.

And when he’s limp and exhausted and crawling into his bed, Harley slips away to comfort Tony the way they refuse to speak of.

And Peter cries, finally, alone, silent, his own private grief witnessed by no one.

~*~

They don’t talk about it. But Peter hears the whispers when he enters the workshop unexpectedly. He sees the flush in Harley’s cheeks and the way Tony lingers in his space, heavy and warm and possessive.

He knows the hungry looks Tony used to give him have shifted.

Not ended, completely—Tony still watches him, something Peter finds as exhilarating as he does terrifying—but it’s like Harley is a magnet, drawing Tony in.

And Harley—Harley is  _ happy _ .

He puts on a little weight and his hands heal up now that he wear protective gloves when he works, he builds and he builds and Peter can almost  _ see _ the gears in his mind turning, and he grins under Tony’s warm regard.

He struts through the penthouse like he belongs and his happiness is so effortless and lovely it’s impossible for Peter to not reflect it.

~*~

They don’t talk about it.

Peter thinks, they forget he’s as smart as they are, in his own way. He thinks they forget, or maybe don’t realize, that he manipulated them into the situation their in, led them into this strange family unit.

He wanted this.

But he never expected that he would be left in his big bed while Harley slipped into Tony’s.

He never expected he would lose the boy he loved to the man he wanted.

~*~

Sometimes, when Harley slips out of their bed and creeps down the hall to Tony’s—

Sometimes Peter listens.

They aren’t loud, but Peter—Peter listens, and he can hear them. Hear the rough rasp of Tony’s breath, the rustle of clothes and sheets and the high needy noise Harley makes when Tony sucks his cock.

He can hear the wet slick noise of lube and the punched out groan that Tony makes and the noise, drawn out and broken, Harley makes. He can hear the whispers, the  _ more _ and  _ harder _ and  _ god, baby, you’re perfect. _

He can hear the choked off cries Harley never lets himself fully form, and he comes, stroking himself and wishing his brother was calling his name.

~*~

He goes to the roof, instead of the workshop, and he doesn’t dance, really. There is still a weight that clings to him, that makes dancing impossible. But he listens to the wind and trips along the edge of the roof and he tips his head up to the sun, stretches toward it and the pressing loneliness doesn’t feel quite as heavy, here.

~*~

They’re happy—this man he adores who cares for him like a son, this boy who has always cared for him and protected him, the brother he chose.

They are happy and he is lonely and cries himself to sleep when they hold each other in the dark.

They are happy and he tells himself that is enough for him to be happy too.


	7. Chapter 7

They don’t talk about what they’re doing.

Not with each other.

Never with Peter.

And when they’re in bed together—when Harley is spread across his sheets, fingers twisted in his hair, gasping while Tony swallows him down, when he’s sobbing into the pillows as Tony fucks him, when Tony clings to his narrow hips and watches with helpless awe as Harley rides him—when they’re in bed.

They never mention Peter.

~*~

Harley is still shivering, his breathing too fast and hard, sweat slick on his skin, and Tony twists his fingers, just to see him shudder. For a heartbeat, he wishes he were younger, that he could take the boy again.

He’d be gorgeous, fucked out and over sensitive and still gagging for it.

A flicker of thought rears it’s head and he squashes it, brutally, and pulls his fingers out in that slow slow way that makes Harley twitch and moan.

“Are you happy?” he murmurs, presses the question into his skin and licks over the salt and words.

“Are you?” Harley drowses back and he doesn’t answer.

They lay in silence until the sweat cools on his skin and Harley sighs, moving away from him.

“You could stay,” he says, a soft offer he always makes. Harley doesn’t answer, just presses a quick filthy kiss to his lips and then slips away.

He never stays.

Tony doesn’t blame him—if Peter were waiting on him, he wouldn’t stay either.

~*~

He notices before Harley.

Or maybe he just mentions it first.

“Peter is avoiding the workshop.”

~*~

He smiles for them.

He listens when Harley talks, eyes bright and happy. He listens to Tony’s grumbling and grins when Tony corrects his homework, and preens when they praise the food he makes.

But there are shadows, clinging to his eyes, a sadness to him that reminds Tony of the Dust, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop.

~*~

Some nights—some nights, he doesn’t sleep. He slips out of his bed when Harley has gone back to Peter, slips out of the apartment to the quiet of his workshop and the half finished projects there. DUM-E trundles along behind him, curious and quiet, and he touches the notes Peter abandoned on his workbench and wonders what happened.

Where he fucked up.

~*~

They’re in the workshop when it happens. Tony knows the rules.

So does Harley.

But here they are, Harley on his knees and Tony’s head tipped back, the filthy sound of a blowjob filling up the room, and then—a gasp.

Quiet.

Almost lost under the sound of Harley moaning around him, almost lost under the slick sound of his  _ mouth. _

But not quite.

Tony’s eyes flutter open, but he knows what he’s going to see.

Peter is standing in the doorway, his bag half falling off his shoulder, his mouth open and red in his cheeks, eyes glued on them.

Tony shudders and comes, and when he can breath, when he can  _ think _ beyond the burning pleasure—

Peter is gone.

~*~

Harley is furious.

“He had to already know, Harls.”

“Knowing and  _ knowing _ are two different things,” Harley spits, and jerks away from him and Tony—Tony lets him.

As much as has changed this hasn’t—Harley is Peter’s. Peter is Harley’s. There is no room between them for him—he exists on the outskirts of their world, a moon drawn to orbit around them. He doesn’t even mind, most days.

He sighs and slowly, slowly, follows him.

~*~

Harley is white faced and shaking when he greets Tony at the elevator, and he can feel the quiet of the penthouse yawning behind him, mocking and cruel.

He knows, even before Harley opens his mouth.

“Peter’s gone,” he says.


	8. Chapter 8

He doesn't get to keep good things. 

He knows it. It's what his mama told him when Gracie died, what she said when Daddy ran away. Was the last thing she left, scribbled in a drunk shakey scrawl, next to her limp body and the empty bottles of Jack and Vicodin. 

He doesn't get to keep good things. Tony was and the Tower was and Peter--Peter was the very best thing to happen to him, and he thought, the world ended but Peter was  _ his  _ so maybe the bad outweighed the immeasurable good and he'd get to keep Peter. 

He should have known. 

He doesn't get to keep good things. 

~*~ 

The first night he's panicked. He runs out of the tower, ignoring Tony, ignoring the tiny voice that says  _ stay _ , ignoring everything but the fury and panic and the  _ fear. _

Peter was gone, and Peter was his world, was everything Harley had wanted for longer even than the Dust. And now there’s Tony, there’s the workshop and all the pretty distractions and a  _ family _ . 

But without Peter--

What’s the fucking point? 

~*~ 

He goes back to their shitty apartment, with the badly sealed windows and the cold musty bed, to the roof where Peter danced and the apartment down the hall that he shared with his aunt, that was just as shitty but Peter was  _ happy _ there. 

He goes to the school, the yawning empty building where Peter met Tony and everything began to change. He goes to the garage he worked in, the park where they’d feed birds, the tiny dirty coffeeshop Peter adored. 

He goes everywhere he can think, and it’s only when he’s standing on the street and the air is dry and still and the city too silent that he realizes--Peter is gone. 

Peter is  _ gone _ and he can’t bring him home. 

~*~ 

Tony finds him there, on the curb, idles his stupid fucking car--they fucked in the backseat one day, and it smelled like sex and coffee for days--while Tony comes to sit next to him. 

“He’s gone,” he says, and it’s not an accusation, not like it had been in the Tower. He leans into Tony and hates himself for it. 

“You’ll find him,” Tony says, like he believes it, like it’s the only thing he can believe. 

Harley doesn’t believe it. But for a moment, resting in Tony’s arms, as the air hangs hot and still and empty around them--he thinks Tony can believe enough for both of them. 

~*~ 

He wakes up on the third morning, and bolts from Peter’s bed. Tony blinks at him from the coffee pot, but Harley doesn’t bother to stop, doesn’t explain, just run from the tower. For the first time since that fucking gasp in the garage--he hopes. 

~*~ 

The dance studio is dark and still. It was abandoned in the aftermath of the Dust but Harley remembers when it was bright and full of happy voice and Peter’s laughter, and the sound of music. He loved dancing here, body moving to the rhythm of the song, all lean lines and supple grace. 

Peter doesn’t dance. 

Not anymore. 

Not since the Dust and May died and the world changed. 

But once. What feels like a lifetime ago--he spun across a rooftop for an audience of stars, and he taught laughing little girls how to plié. 

Once, this was his second home, and Harley would watch him dance here, and listen as Peter laughed with his aunt. 

He slips into the dusty quiet studio, careful to step past the shattered glass, careful to not disturb the stillness. 

There are tracks in the dust and his heart pounds as he walks deeper into the studio. 

He  _ hopes. _

_ ~*~ _

Peter is dirty and skinny and his eyes are red-rimmed and exhausted as he peers at Harley from a nest of dirty blankets, and he makes a low, unhappy noise. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says. “You should be with Mr. Stark.” 

Harley shakes his head, and cross the studio, hitting his knees and catching Peter’s head in his hands. 

“You  _ idiot.  _ Don’t you  _ get it?” _

Peter stares at him, wary and still and poised to run. 

Harley leans down, brushes his lips against Peter’s and swallows the shocked little gasp it earns him. His lips are chapped and bitten raw and his breath is stale and it’s still the best kiss he’s ever had. 

“I would happily live in a burnt out box with nothing but my coat to keep us warm, if it meant I got to be with you, Peter,” he whispers. “The Tower? It’s home because of  _ you. _ ” 

“Tony--” he begins, weakly, fighting to break Harley’s grip on him. 

“Wants you to come home,” Tony’s voice echoes in the room, and it makes them both go still. Harley pulls Peter close, protectively and notes the flash of hurt in Tony’s eyes. “But if home isn’t with me--I will make sure you and Harley are provided for. Wherever you want, whatever you want. Peter, you have to know that.” 

“But--you--Harls--” he bites his lip, eyes flitting between them, distress on his face. 

“I love Harley,” Tony says and he jolts, trembling because that--that’s not what they are. That’s not what they agreed to. “But Harley and I--we both love you.” 

Peter goes still, not even breathing in Harley’s arms and he looks down, at the shock and disbelief in his pretty eyes, and he murmurs, “Baby. Come home. Let us show you.” 


	9. Chapter 9

“Peter?”

He shifts, a quiet mound under a pile of blankets, and Tony sighs. “Harley is going out, sweetheart. I’ll be in the living room, if you need me.”

Peter is silent, waiting as he slips out of the room.

This is what will happen--what's happened every day since Harley and Tony brought him home—Harley will leave, go to his garage that he had quit working at. Tony will stay in the living room, working on paperwork or whatever project has him enthralled, and Peter—Peter will stay here. Tucked in his bed, the quiet so loud it’s oppressive, his eyes squeezed shut.

Later, Harley will come and sit next to him, and eventually Peter will fall asleep to the sound of Harley’s voice, and he’ll promise tomorrow will be different.

It’s been two weeks.

And nothing is different. There is only this—cold and lonely and separate, the quiet warmth and laughter that had filled up the Tower suddenly gone.

He’s breaking them.

He knows he is.

He knew he would. It’s why he ran, and why he should run again. But every time he thinks about it—he can see Harley, the sorrow in his eyes and the pleading in Tony’s as they found him in that studio.

They brought him home and he let them.

And now—now he’s ruining everything.

~*~

Harley doesn’t touch Tony.

Sometimes, when Peter closes his eyes, he can see them—the way they looked together in the workshop.

He closes his eyes in the shower and touches himself, and bites his lip to swallow his moan.

He wants them.

He wants them, and he knows they want him—Tony’s words ring in his head, drowning out the sound of Harley sucking him off—and he doesn’t know how to reach out and ask for what he wants.

He doesn’t know how to fix what he’s broken.

~*~

“Peter?” Tony’s voice. He’s quiet, resigned. This is more habit than the belief that he’ll get any response. “Harley is going out, sweetheart,” he says and Peter shifts in the bed.

He is so tired.

He is so fucking  _ tired. _

“I want to go to the roof,” he says. Tony stills and Peter hears footsteps behind him, Harley coming closer. His voice is rusty and hoarse, cracked with disuse, and he knows that they’re going to be watching him with worry in their eyes, and fear.

He scrambles out of bed, scrambles to change into something less wrinkled and smelly and stained, and then pushes past them.

He doesn’t ask if they’ll come.

He knows they’ll come.

Tony hasn’t looked away from him since he spoke and Harley’s hands are clenched in fists, tight and desperate to keep himself from reaching for Peter.

He wants him to.

He wants that heavy hot gaze on him and Harley’s big rough hands on him, and he wants to breath and not taste dust and ash and he wants to  _ keep them. _

He shudders, and shoves out of the staircase and into the open air of the roof.

The sun is shining, and the world lays before them, the whole of the city sprawled below, and it’s so  _ quiet. _

He asked Harley, once—if he thought the world would ever be loud again.

If he thought they’d ever be the same.

Harley hadn’t answered, but he’d cried, into Peter’s hair when he thought Peter fell asleep.

The world is different. He knows that, knows it’s never going to be the same. But there’s a part of him—the part that wants May and Ben and his quiet dirty apartment and the dance studio and sore feet—that  _ wants _ it to be.

Tony and Harley are standing in the doorway, watching watching watching.

And he wants.

He wants to keep them.

The world changed.

The world is  _ never _ going to go back to what it was. And he  _ wants  _ to keep them.

Peter tilts his head back, and he cries as he begins to move.

Harley is the one who breaks the silence, and his voice is soft, breathless in a way Peter’s never heard, almost reverent. “He’s dancing again.” 


	10. Chapter 10

Tony crawls from bed carefully. Harley doesn’t move, too used to Tony leaving him sleeping to be disturbed. 

Peter though--Peter rolls into his empty space, a low whine caught in his sleep as he clings to the warm sheets Tony leaves behind. There are bruises on his throat, a bright new set that Harley will fit his teeth to and lick over, when they wake. 

There is come dried on his belly and thighs and his feet are wrapped still--they were sore from his dancing and Tony wrapped them carefully before carrying the boy to his bed. 

Tony presses a kiss into his hair and Peter goes limp into the bed before he moves away. 

He hums, soft and off tune as he cooks. He used to do this--before. 

Before. 

And then he stopped and the world stopped and the whole universe went  _ quiet. _

And then Peter slipped into his life, and dragged Harley with him and silence slipped away, replaced by Peter’s laughter and singing, by Harley’s low warm drawal and teasing, by the bots beeping inquisitive and happy again. 

_ Tony _ talked again. 

He didn’t think--he never  _ dared _ think, he’d get to keep this. 

But there are two boys, warm and sleepy in his bed, and he loves them. 

He loves them, and he wants to keep them. 

Always. 

~*~ 

Harley wakes and realizes two things all at once--Peter’s mouth is hot and wet around his cock, and Tony isn’t here. 

He groans, low and long, and Peter’s fingers, gripping his hips, tighten briefly. “Baby,” he gasps, and Peter rewards him by taking his cock all the way down his throat, moaning pretty and choked around him. He gasps and thrusts, a tiny abortive thrust that makes Peter shudder. 

It’s slow and wet and so damn hot he’s riding the edge of coming before he can even fully appreciate it all, and he twists his fingers gentle in Peter’s hair. “Gonna come,” he gasps. 

“Do it,” Tony says, raspy and Peter whines, shifting on the bed, and he groans, coming hard and Peter sucks him through it, hand rolling his balls, tongue teasing at the head of his dick until Harley bats weakly at him. 

Tony presses a kiss to his lips and carefully puts a tray of eggs and toast on the little table in his bedroom where they have most of their breakfasts. Harley smiles as Peter crawls up his body, kisses him with lips still sticky and wet. 

“Morning,” Peter murmurs, and Harley bites at his lip, licks it quick and grins at him. 

“Peter,” Tony murmurs, and Harley can’t  _ see _ but he feels the way Peter shudders, the way Tony hovers close, his hand low on Peter’s ass and he just  _ knows _ he’s got three fingers twisted up in Peter’s ass. 

“Did you get yourself nice and ready for us, baby?” Harley drawls and Peter mewls, head dropped against his shoulder and ass pushing back against Tony and Harley-he can’t believe this is his. 

He can’t believe they are his. 

Tony pulls Peter back, onto his cock, rocks into him as Peter’s face crunches in pure pleasure and Harley thinks, fiercely, that the world can rot--can turn to dust and ash and he won’t even complain. Not so long as he can keep this. 

Keep them. 

~*~ 

Later. After Tony has fucked him and Harley has licked him clean, after they’ve curled around him and fed him bits of eggs and bacon and crunch toast, laughing and teasing and besotted, after a long shower that ended with Harley’s hand in his hair and Tony’s cock in his mouth and water pounding around them--

After. He sits in the workshop and watches Tony and Harley bicker over the car they’re working on. He’s playing with a formula, something that might revitalize the food supply, if it works. 

It will help millions--if it works. 

Tony kissed him and told him it would, and Harley held him close, whispered how proud he was, and Peter had preened under their touch. 

He  _ likes _ that he is given the ability to create, here. That he can hear Tony and Harley, loud loud loud and close, while his mind puzzles through the many ways to help  _ others.  _

Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--he still feels guilty. 

He thinks he doesn’t deserve this. 

But Harley is warm and solid and steady at his side, his hand claiming on his hip. 

And Tony is bright eyed and intent, awe in dark dark eyes as he watches Peter dance and gentle as he massages his sore feet, and--

Guilty or not, deserving or not--they want him. 

They love him. 

And he will fight like hell to keep them. 

~*~ 

The world changed in a heartbeat. 

No one knew it was coming. The world was fine--and then it wasn't. 

It was beautiful and crowded and  _ loud.  _

And then it was dirty dusty quiet. 

And everything changed. 

But their world--their world emerged from the dust, a slow sweet thing that they  _ fought _ for, and guard, jealously, and Tony Harley Peter are grateful, every kiss and touch and smile precious and hoarded, a treasure of joy gleaming a world of dust. 


End file.
